Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (PS4) Review

THE SHORT VERSION

Much like my assessment of
Lian Hearn's recent work, there are times when my critical and subjective
opinions clash. On the one hand,Deus
Ex: Mankind Divided is a solid, visually luscious and
intricately-detailed action-RPG that nonetheless could've done with a slightly
meatier runtime and some more engagement in the main story arc.

On the other, though, it's a
beautiful cyberpunk game that puts me back in the stylish trenchcoat of one of
my favourite video game protagonists ever. There are call backs to the previous
game, call forwards to the future ones, and all of it wrapped within the same
immersive,Blade Runner-esque
experience that madeDeus Ex: Human Revolutionsuch a joy to play.

So take this review for
whatever it's worth. I am a sucker forDeus
Ex and the cyberpunk genre, and was thus able to overlook a few ofMankind Divided's deficiencies
(minor though they ultimately are). As a game critic, I thought it was an
excellent addition to an already sterling year in gaming. As a fan ofDeus Ex and cyberpunk,
it's quickly become one of my new favourites.

STORY

Two years after Human Revolution’s ending put paid to
the glorious golden age of human cybernetic augmentation – thanks to the
Panchaea Incident, a tragedy where the global augmented community, or “Augs”,
were driven into uncontrollable homicidal rage – the world has descended into
chaos. Anti-augmentation sentiment permeates the globe, shunting the transhuman
population into ramshackle ghettoes and oppressive police action cities like
Prague.

With Sarif Industries having
collapsed after the Panchaea Incident, Adam Jensen’s taken up work with the
Interpol-led Task Force 29, operating out of Prague. TF29’s job is to hunt
augmented terrorists who are threatening an already unstable planet; Adam’s specifically
tasked to track down the perpetrator of a train station bombing which kills
dozens and shakes the Czech Republic to its core. With a volatile atmosphere of
distrust surrounding Augs and a controversial anti-augmentation Act poised to
pass into law, Adam seeks to bring down the bombers, clear the name of a pro-augmentation
group, and perhaps even further unravel the plans of a clandestine group of
powerful world figures who will stop at nothing to burn everything to the ground.

Where Human Revolution was more of a private eye, Neuromancer-via-Altered Carbon-style venture, Mankind Divided
most readily resembles a hybrid of District
9, X-Men and 24. The latter is most evident in TF29’s home base which,
underneath the city centre of Prague, more than a little resembles CTU Los
Angeles. Adam’s new job as an Interpol agent quickly establishes that we’ve
left the gumshoe-inspired investigative fancies of Human Revolution, and are instead being thrown headfirst into a
more direct counter-terrorism allegory – for better or worse.

While Mankind Divided’s politicised story definitely isn’t as provocative
or controversial as the backlash the “Mechanical Apartheid” and “Aug Lives
Matter” marketing material invited, it’s also not as drenched in thoughtful socio-political
subtext as it thinks it is. It’s not a bad thing that the game prioritises the
main character’s journey rather than an innate desire to be socially topical at
the expense of the narrative’s focus, but I was led to believe there’d be a
much stronger emphasis on the thematic throughline than we were given; maybe
that’s just the academic in me. Though there are plenty of post-9/11 allusions
throughout, such as the continuous and ominous mentions of “Panchaea” or “the
Incident”, as well as the hardline xenophobia exhibited towards many innocent
Augs who are blamed for the crimes of their “people”, the story prefers to
stick with Adam and leave all the rest of it as subtextual set dressing. The
best science fiction – and cyberpunk in particular – really says something
about the issues it glimpses through the fictional lens, so it was
disappointing that Mankind Divided
didn’t take the opportunity to really get down and dirty with its subtext.

I’ll also say, without
spoiling, that I feel we’re definitely being set up for sequels here. Human Revolution very concretely cordoned
off its plot when it ended, providing a direct link to the original Deus Ex in its ending credits; by
contrast, Mankind Divided instead
communicates that there’s more yet to come. There’s still enough resolution in
the ending we do get, though it comes quite abruptly and at a wholly unexpected
place in the narrative which also leaves the game feeling a little shorter than
Human Revolution. (EDIT: While they may not be full sequels, we do have confirmed story-based DLC coming shortly).

Despite the above, the
story’s still incredibly immersive. Adam’s one of the most well-drawn video
game protagonists – literally and metaphorically – of the recent age, and it’s
still fascinating to experience the near-future world of augmentations through
his sunglass-implanted eyes. His story’s compelling, surrounded by a supporting
cast of new and interesting secondary characters (most are pretty well-rounded,
though I do miss the likes of Human
Revolution’s Pritchard and Faridah). The city of Prague’s also a dense
narrative hub rich with sidequests, background character interactions,
interactive documents and readable newspapers, all of which help illustrate the
finer details of Mankind Divided’s
world. Like I said above, I’m an absolute sucker for well-rendered cyberpunk
environments, and the game’s immersion factor – derived from its
meticulously-constructed and lived-in locales – was so potent that it caused me
to overlook some of the minor flaws in setting and story. The ending also
emphasises that your in-game choices have power and consequence, which I
especially appreciated after the last game’s agency-removing, choose-your-own-ending
machine.

Of course, having engrossing
plot only matters if you’ve got a set of solid game mechanics to get through
it…

GAMEPLAY

…which, yes, you definitely
do.

Bringing back most of the
alternate FPS/cover-based-shooting approach from its predecessor, Mankind Divided has a much smoother
player interface this time round. Shooting, takedowns, hacking and
using/upgrading augmentations (including a few new “experimental” ones, like
the ability to shoot nano-blades and activate bullet time) have been fine-tuned
and turned into a much tighter experience. There really is no greater
satisfaction than the weighty thud of knocking a foe out with an augmented
fist, or using the new tesla wrist augmentation to zap enemies unconscious.

The game also brings back
the neat option of undertaking a Pacifist run with no enemy casualties, helped
by the near-absence of the boss battles that plagued Human Revolution. Though ultimately it can be accomplished – I
managed to snag a Pacifist PSN trophy on my first playthrough – there are
occasional issues where non-lethal takedowns inexplicably kill the victim,
necessitating the reload of an earlier save. Granted, getting knocked on the
noggin by a fist with the power of an ocean liner piston can’t really be
anything other than an invitation for a lethal cerebral haemorrhage, but the
game could be a bit fairer with whether or not it decides that happens.

The big new feature is
Breach, a standalone mode which represents hacking a computer as a first-person stylised,Portal-esque, sterile, trap-laden
environment which the player needs to navigate. To be frank, I’m not a fan;
Breach plays like a fairly uninvolving, somewhat repetitive puzzle add-on which
contributes little of interest to the game. Its use in the main story is
warranted, if a little on the tedious side, but it’s not the kind of thing I’d
sink hours into all on its own.

There are also a New Game
Plus feature and a difficulty setting memetically titled ‘I Never Asked For
This’, which gives you one life for the entire game and deletes your save game
if you die, no matter how far through the story you are. I foresee many
controllers being snapped in frustration here, but on the other hand it’s
always nice to cater to the Dark Souls-style
crowd with a mode like this.

VISUALS

The five years between games
has clearly allowed Eidos Montreal to refine Deus Ex’s graphical qualities, particular in terms of the people
you’re shooting at. Character movements are no longer the rubber-jointed
scarecrow enactments they were before, instead moving with a more realistic
gait and collapsing in a way that doesn’t make them resemble Homer Simpson
lying in an inflatable pool.

More important than that,
the game’s environments are simply gorgeous. As I said above, Prague feels like
a lived-in, intricately-detailed city, thanks in no small part to the level of
visual fidelity on display. There are a number of suburbs and shops that can be
freely explored and each feel like their own places, rather than cookie-cutter
rooms sprinkled throughout the hub. Levels outside Prague are also
well-constructed, with particular note given to the Aug ghetto Golem City; it
resembles what the cities in Blade Runner
might look like after a natural disaster.

My only graphical quibble is
that items and drawers which can be plundered no longer stick out as they did
in the previous game. Rather than the gold outline in Human Revolution, interactive objects now have a thin white line
around them, separating them from the rest of the background detail; there’s an
optical augmentation you can use to find them more easily, but that sometimes
feels like needless busywork. In opting to eschew its previous black-and-gold
colour palette and going for the greyer industrial tone set by the original
game, Mankind Divided inadvertently
makes the scavenger hunt aspect a little more of a chore to accomplish.

SOUND AND MUSIC

Three cheers for the musical
tag team of Michael McCann and Sascha Dikiciyan, who absolutely kill it on the
score here. McCann’s Human Revolution
soundtrack was easily my favourite game score in years, and his welcome return
here brings back a Vangelis-inspired flavour to the soundscape. Other sound
effects are uniformly great, with the layered ambience of industrial sounds,
vehicles, footsteps and weather effects contributing to the game’s lived-in
feel.

The major aural criticism I
have is to do with dialogue, and several characters’ in particular. I’m
especially not keen on former SAS commando Jim Miller, Adam’s boss at TF29, who’s
a thick-accented Australian with dialogue that is far from subtle in its
delivery. I’m unsure as to whether it’s because of voice actor Vernon Wells,
the vocal direction, or a combination of the two, but Miller just comes off as
a loud Australian without anything resembling nuance in either his character or
his vocal inflection. Almost every sentence Miller speaks throws me out of the
experience, which is especially egregious when compared to the stellar vocal
performances of Elias Toufexis as Adam and Victoria Sanchez as resident hacker
Alex Vega. The same unfortunately goes for vocal legend Peter Serafinowicz’s
turn as TF29 anti-Aug xenophobe Duncan MacCready, who’s similarly blatant and
un-nuanced in his dialogue delivery.

But overall, the sound of Mankind Divided just enhances an already
engrossing immersion factor. Put on some noise-cancelling headphones for this
one, and stroll around near-future Prague for a bit in order to really get the
full aural effect.

WRAPPING UP

As I said at the start, it’s difficult for me to be objective about a game
which ticks all my boxes like this. Not to say it’s perfect, but my critical
opinion does come coloured with the fact that I’m an easy target for cyberpunk.

But even
so, I’d argue Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is
still one of the best games of 2016, whether you’re a fan of the genre or not.
It’s technically solid, narratively engrossing even when it’s not entirely
gripping, visually spectacular and aurally immersive. My quibbles are only
chips in the surface surrounding an extremely solid core experience, one which
was so excellent that I started a new game immediately after finishing the main
plot. Definitely worth checking out.